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Julie188 writes "The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab held an IPv6 consumer electronics Plugfest on Feb. 14 and CableLabs has scheduled two more for this year. UNH is tight-lipped about the results, but the sad fact is that most home routers and DSL/cable modems certified as IPv6-compliant by the IPv6 Forum are so full of implementation bugs that they can't be used by ISPs for IPv6 field trials. And that's not helping the Internet have a smooth, fast transition to IPv6. Though OpenWRT and DD-WRT solve the problem, ISPs point out that requiring the average consumer to upgrade their own firmware, because the manufacturer can't do IPv6 right, isn't a practical solution."

However, Cisco isn't sure yet if routers bought prior to 2011 will get IPv6. "We are currently looking into which 'legacy' Linksys product can support IPv6. (There are many things that influence us being able to do it -- including if there is enough memory, as well as other factors.) The engineer teams are working on that," the spokesperson said.

I would be shocked if they offered firmware upgrades for old hardware to add IPv6 support even if the hardware could do it. It seems more likely they and others will use it as an excuse to obsolete a ton of old hardware and force people to buy new stuff.

I would be shocked if Cisco ever produces a Linksys router that is worth the money, IPv6 or not. The hundreds I've seen in the field are so unreliable that I'd never buy one, and I replace one or two more every week. Linksys is the reason I carry two Netgear or Dlink wireless routers in the car.
Sure, I do see other brands fail after a year or two, but I've seen more brand new defective Linksys routers than I have Netgear routers that dies of old age.

Sure, I do see other brands fail after a year or two, but I've seen more brand new defective Linksys routers than I have Netgear routers that dies of old age.

Obviously Cisco is tackling the IPv6 problem proactively: make IPv4 routers with very short half life, so when we to switch to IPv6, the number of people who need to buy a new router will be only slightly higher than normal!

Some of their models might suck, but their WRT54GL line has been pretty awesome. We've probably sent out a few hundred ourselves, and a half dozen failures a year would be a bad year. Uptimes with third party firmware like DDWRT or Tomato are pretty much "since the last power failure". We replaced one that was on battery backup to upgrade to 802.11n, and the uptime before disconnecting it was over 600 days.

Netgear's pretty good too, but D-Link? They couldn't code a DHCP server to save their lives.

Buffalo use DD-WRT with a custom interface (more of a skin but with some re-wording and support for features popular in Japan like game console and one button setup support). In fact some of their models officially support vanilla DD-WRT.

They are most popular in Japan, not least because they were some of the first to support routing at close to 100Mb for fibre connections. The packaging actually had "98.6Mb" in big letters on it. Now they offer gigabit too, although the routing capability isn't up to 1000Mb

I've always had good luck with Linksys reliability and stability - I recently upgraded from my antique BEFSX41 to a newer model that had 802.11n support,and they're fine. (Of course, when I finally got around to looking at how to configure IPv6, and found that the answer was "folks on the net say it supports DD-WRT", I was much less happy:-)

By contrast, while I've always really liked Netgear's Layer 2 switches, the one Netgear router I bought (which did 802.11b) was a cretinous piece of junk, and I haven'

NetGear's business line is pretty good. I picked up an 8-port managed gigabit switch for about $90 and while the management interface is total crap, it really is manageable and handles a decent set of traffic through it (much better than $40 Linksys switches).

But the SOHO routers... No, I won't buy them anymore. I just gave away my old one as a holdover for some other dead router with a warning that it shouldn't be expected to last long.

Netgear's older wireless routers were horrible too. On the other hand, for basic Ethernet switches (or hubs, back when we used hubs), they've been fine.

I'd been very happy with the 3Com Travel Router wifi access point I used for a couple of years, other than a tendency to overheat (never did melt or catch fire, but always felt like it would), and you could use it as a dumb bridge instead of a router, which meant I could let my older wired Linksys do all the Layer 3 work. However, enough of my apartment ne

Sure, I do see other brands fail after a year or two, but I've seen more brand new defective Linksys routers than I have Netgear routers that dies of old age.

I've got a WRT54GS, a WRT54GL, and a WRT54Gv8 scattered around my house acting as dumb access points. The oldest is probably seven years old. Once configured, I haven't had to touch any of them. Meanwhile, my pair of Netgear gigabit switches are awful. I've replaced them each twice. Good thing they have a lifetime warranty. I get some issue where they will just start flooding the network with traffic, preventing anything from getting through, and requiring a power cycling. The 24-port Netgear switches at work have the same exact behavior. The only thing I can think of is some sort of STP failure.

For the money, I highly recommend you get HP ProCurve line. If all you need is a simple un-managed 24-port gigabit switch, check out the V1410-24G. It has a lifetime warranty with next business day replacement. Currently, CDW's going price is $302.99

Funny that is why I carry a couple of TrendNet routers myself. Folks may make cracks because TrendNet routers are cheap and aren't fancy, but I have set up TrendNet routers on construction sites where the amount of grit, funk, and temp differences would choke just about any router (and killed brand new Linksys junk dead) and they just keep on humping along, solid as ever.

Like you I have thrown away more brand new Linksys routers than any other brand by a looong shot. There is cheap and there is garbage and Linksys has been garbage for as long as I've dealt with them. I walk into an SMB or SOHO with network troubles more than half the time a Linksys is involved. Just absolute trash.

To me what the real tragedy of IPV6 is (and why they didn't figure out a way to be backwards compatible I'll never know) is how many brand new routers are being sold at this very minute with NO IPV6 support. I'm normally not big on government regulation but this is just ridiculous. You just know the vast majority of these new routers will get NO IPV6 update and are just doomed for the garbage heap straight from the assembly line. The amount of waste this will create is just staggering and if the OEMs can't get onboard then the government simply needs to ban all non IPV6 capable routers from being imported, along with coming up with a standards test so that IPV6 capable doesn't end up another Vista capable.

. If they get a couple of shipments left to rot on the docks maybe they'll rethink selling IPV4 only routers this late in the game.

Let the Fed switch to IPv6, thus encouraging others to follow along. The President could issue an executive order to the Executive Branch mandating IPv6 support without getting approval from Congress.

The government is ahead of you. The Defense Department started a move to IPv6 a few years ago, and required that all contractors be IPv6-capable by a certain date, and said that certain communications would be IPv6-only by a somewhat later date. Agencies that work with the DoD were required to be IPv6-capable

The problem with your proposal is while it might help get the business sector moving in the right direction the Fed isn't dealing with consumer hardware which is where the real waste is piling up. After all if you spend $6k+ on a router most likely you will get an IPV6 update. Under $100? Not so much.

That is why we are gonna have to simply ban its importation, as there really no excuse for cranking out IPV4 routers this late in the game yet short of the $100 Apple there really isn't any consumer support to

I suspect that all the manufacturers are cutting costs by shaving quality, and until the disappointing reviews hit the web, they can get away with selling crap at high prices.

They haven't yet.

I've seen quite a few reviews from supposedly reputable publications where they openly admit to not doing long-term tests. I suspect quite a few of them, the test consists of "Turn it on and set up. Does it connect to the Internet? Tick, that's a 60% review straight away. Does the wireless work? Tick, 70%. Can I get wireless in another part of the house? Tick. 80%. Do the menus on the UI present a huge number of options, many of which I don't understand? Ah, it has a lot of feature

For hardware that supports it, why not sell an upgraded IPv6-ready version of the firmware for like $10-20 (with free updates for 2 years or something)?

I, for one, don't expect free updates forever (if I just bought the router within one year of the IPv6 firmware version being released, I might expect a free upgrade, but further back than that, I could reasonably see buying the upgrade.

I would think that, without needing to manufacture or ship any new hardware, that $10-20 would give them almost as much pro

In Windows Vista and 7, if DNS resolves the name "isatap", Windows will automatically try to acquire an IPv6 prefix using an IPv4 tunnel to the ISATAP server, and use that server to route all your IPv6 traffic. Windows XP SP1+ will as well, once you enable IPv6.

When an ISP implements IPv6, why can't they also add an ISATAP server? With ISATAP, customers with IPv4 routers will have computers that notice the ISP's IPv6 router and start using it through their IPv4 NAT router automatically.

Cisco could implement ISATAP into their routers so that ISPs' internal routers could provide the ISATAP interface, which would be better than a normal machine being a single point of failure. Is this an ISATAP packet destined for the fake IP address we set up as the isatap DNS result? Yes. Let's translate this packet to IPv6 and send it on its way.

Since this is effectively bypassing the customer's IPv4 router's pseudo-security inherently present in NAT, the ISP could have a policy that those using ISATAP as opposed to an IPv6-capable router will have incoming IPv6 traffic blocked, to maintain the status quo in security.

Sometimes, I feel like this transition process is being handled the wrong way, and that there are much easier solutions to these seemingly difficult migration problems.

In fact, they make it pretty darned easy for you to upgrade to a 3rd party firmware. And there are free 3rd party firmwares out there today that provide full IPv6 stacks (along with almost anything else).

Yep. But none of them support PPPoA (and are unlikely to, seeing as PPPoA requires hardware-specific support), which messes up more-or-less anyone on ADSL in the UK.

"Get an ADSL bridge!"

Oh goodie. So my options are either:

One piece of sucky hardware running sucky firmware.

Two pieces of sucky hardware, one with sucky firmware and the other not so bad.

IME, you can't add two things that suck together and expect the overall level of suckitude to drop.

"With the exception of some products by D-Link and Apple's AirPort Express and AirPort Extreme, none of today's CPE can operate using IPv6 well enough for a field test trial, Bulk says."

Also, even the high points of Apple and D-Link have gaps in their best models and many models that are still very broken. IIRC, only one of the D-Link (the newest one) includes a stateful firewall and older models probably won't ever because of memory limitations.

Apple's routers are fine with regard to IPv6, and D-Link's routers are fine as well; it's just that, once again, the reporter says "most home routers" instead of using the brand name Cisco.

Not just Cisco; pretty much all consumer routers except Apple's AirPort and a couple of models of D-Link router (out of the dozens of different models they currently sell) completely fail to support IPv6. That's what, 3 models total? As a consumer, unless you went to a specific effort to buy a router that supports IPv6 chances are yours doesn't.

What's more, none of these routers have integrated ADSL modems, which means that most broadband providers can't usefully supply them bundled with their service - and

You are certainly right, but it would be nice if some of these router developers got their act together. At this point I have decided not to buy any hardware that does not have either IPv6 support out of the box or a guaranteed firmware upgrade path provided by the manufacturer.

BTW For anyone wondering, your switches are fine, since they operate at Layer-2. The issues are going to be things like routers and bridges.

Too bad Apple has been entirely unwilling to address DHCPv6 for purposes of DNS information, which means that all of their products must have DNS servers configured by typing in their IPv6 addresses. (Yes, several other vendors suffer from the same issue) but I still suggest that disqualifies them form the "Ready for IPv6" badge of honor. See http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2607101&tstart=1 [apple.com], or most any education networking IPv6 discussion.

Partially. Stateless autoconfiguration gives all hosts an IPv6 address, the correct subnet mask, and the default gateway. DNS is conspicuously absent. There is an extension to the RA that can specify a DNS server, but not all OSs support it.

Just curious, but what is the failure happening with IPv6 DNS? I am using IPv6 on my machine and have no issues. If you mean that it tries resolving IPv4 before IPv6, then while it may be incompatible with the spec, it will probably result in less people trying to turn off IPv6 on their machines.

The manufactures bother with custom firmware? Don't they make the money on the hardware? I can see it in the business world, where Cisco makes a fortune on charging for patches to their custom firmware, but in the home space you don't pay Cisco for a patch, you go buy a D-Link.

the simple thing to do would be to create a decent web interface to OpenWRT and DD-WRT that can be branded by people and then we would be in a better situation !most of them use linux anyway so it's simply that they dont know how to ship qualityencourage them to use Open systems and not and they will

Where is the upside for a customer in caring about ipv6? Will they want to decloak when/if ipv6 becomes popular? OMG, my PC is broadcasting an IP address, of course I want your wonderful product to protect me! All ipv6 would do is get every Windows PC pwn3d twenty four hours after deployment and then everyone retreats behind a NAT and dynamic IP again, this time grafted onto ipv6. Or no ipv6 for end users. What is going to happen is that as addresses get tight the big ISPs will put residential users on 10/8 nets and double NAT just like they have been doing overseas for years and on mobile phones since day one. That will free up enough addresses for servers for the indefinite future. And end the open Internet as we have known it. P2P is over, end users consume content like they are supposed to and content producers produce content like they are supposed to. Or we implement IPv6 at a cost of billions in a down economy and uncork the P2P genie again along with untold new services once any host can reach any host as the Internet originally intended.. Put that way it is a real easy decision for the large players isn't it.

NAT needs a connection state tracker to work anyway (which forms the basis of a stateful firewall). Slap a stateful firewall on v6, no need for actual NAT, and you get better security without the drawbacks. As for dynamic IPs, every IPv6 customer gets at least 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 IPv6s to himself. It's pretty easy to make computers pick one at random. This alone makes IPv6 a lot more resistant to attack than IPv4, since IP netblock scanning becomes all but impossible.

> I think you severely under estimate how long it would take to scan / malware install over the entire ipv6 address space...

To be so naive again.... they will adapt. Almost certainly before IPv6 spreads to average end points. Server logs will become the new hot item to steal. The webbugs in spam will be a rich trove of IP usage, etc. Then they will start hacking routers so they can see the traffic passing through. Huge lists of active addresses will pass around the underground. And remember, for th

Where is the upside for a customer in caring about ipv6? Will they want to decloak when/if ipv6 becomes popular? OMG, my PC is broadcasting an IP address, of course I want your wonderful product to protect me! All ipv6 would do is get every Windows PC pwn3d twenty four hours after deployment and then everyone retreats behind a NAT and dynamic IP again, this time grafted onto ipv6.

How many times do we have to tell you people, NAT is not a security mechanism. All it does is translate packets from one address to another. All of these consumer NAT routers could just as easily become consumer stateful firewalls. Block all traffic unless originating from the internal physical network, or there is a specific rule to allow it. It's not hard. It's really functionally no different. You just lose those restrictions like not being able to run multiple servers on the same port, or not bein

You know all that tech stuff. I know all that tech stuff. Explain to typical cable modem customer why they should care enough to not only pay more or replace hardware but to agitate to get their cable company to implement IPv6. Reread what I wrote, that last part was cast as how a large ISP that is in the content business (as every cable provider and most DSL providers are) will be evaluating the decision. Spend billions on something customers don't realize a need for and cost your content side of the h

My cynical side has to agree. ISPs hate P2P technology - not only does it suck up network capacity and force them into expensive upgrades, but many of them are closely tied to content companies or distribution services too. Give them a chance to kill P2P through inaction, and I imagine a lot of them will be more than happy to sit back let it happen. No more piracy to reduce the demand for cable TV, no more VoIP to compete with their telephone services.

OK, in most people's minds "NAT" means "that box that provides a secure local network safe from the outside", when the reality is really "NAT is a packet router that usually comes bundled with a firewall that provides a secure local network safe from the outside". Think of the 'DMZ' or port forwarding options on in their NAT router to clarify.

You can have the safe local network without NAT. If the IPv6 routers come with a firewall, configur

There's a problem: your average tech can't even suspect Apple to be a "well known" IPv6 router maker... see? IPv6 marketting was dead on arrival even for those who *deserve* to boast their early mastery.

I never heard of RouterBoard or Fritz!Box 7390 at the local giant computer store, or Staples, Circuit City, Best Buy, Sears, or even RadioShack. I also paid $150 for a router with no physical* sign that it was fully compliant out of the box. *That* is still the problem: even *they* don't care that they *car

I just installed a 7340, the 'light' version of the 7390 as offered by my ISP.

There's a build in wizard that helps you with 2 or 3 clicks through the settings and it's up and running:)

The past several months there have been quite a few problems with this modem's firmware and that's why I waited before changing out the 7170, things look OK now.
But my main reasons to get it was for it's VDSL and the build in DECT base station.

I'm running a 7270 with the Lab firmware. The moment it came up it created an IPv6 tunnel before I had even configured it.

It should be interesting to see whether it is able to skip that step entirely when my ISP finally rolls out V6 later this year, after 8 years of sticking their fingers in their ears and going "La la la" about IPv4 depletion. Now if only I can get my web hosts to stop doing that too...

OpenWrt makes you install the ipv6 packages yourself in the interest of keeping the base image small, after all almost nobody needs ipv6 currently. And I suspect Cisco/Linksys is right about the impact on the lower end of their range, even running OpenWrt. I'd have to see a Wrt54GL install the ipv6 packages and actually run under load to believe it. As for their current retail products running on half the ram? Not bloody likely. Me, I'm running a D-Link DIR-825 with 64MB of ram in it, I could probably load the OpenWRT ipv6 packages without a problem.... but AT&T has said word zero about support for IPv6 for residential DSL customers so I'm keeping the 1.3MB of remaining flash open for other stuff.

The problem with 6to4 is that it is asymmetric. Your outgoing packets will be going through that 192.88.99.1 node you found by traceroute. But your return packets will be going through whatever gateway is closest to the IPv6 host you are accessing.

This means that you will be using a lot of different gateways all around the world. And a lot of those are badly configured and give poor quality. One usual problem is badly configured MTU such that all larger packets do not make it through. Ping will work but any actual download fails.

The 6rd protocol is a small tweak to 6to4 such that the return gateway is forced to be one operated by your ISP. This way the ISP can ensure it is working properly and give you a good experience.

Most of my substantial home machines run IPv6, as do my offsite machines, and I link them via Hurricane Electric tunnels. It's a mix of OSX 10.5 and 10.6, Solaris 10, Open Solaris and Solaris 11, with Apple basestations and such. It all "just works", to the point that once I got the DNS sorted out "ssh machine-in-next-room" goes via IPv6 by default, as does remote access to websites that offer IPv6 connectivity.

Really the only big problem on the PC side is legacy XP installations, Win7 has IPv6 enabled OOTB.

Windows XP is not a problem either. All it takes is one command, on the command line, and IPv6 is active. It even assigns itself an address using router advertisements. For the DNS server address you will still need IPv4, but in an internal network that isn't really an issue.

And the benefit is? Bouncing all of your traffic around like that is just adding latency. Until there are resources only reachable by IPv6 most people aren't going to get interested enough for ISPs to offer it native.

I don't know about the person you're responding too but I actually routinely get better latency via IPv6 tunneled via Hurricane Electric than IPv4 through my own ISP.

Fact of the matter is that IPv6 should be slightly faster since the routers don't have to recalculate a CRC for every hop. HE has multiple tunnel broker servers around the world. So you can pick one close to your network and the only CRC latency you'll eat will be the hops between you and the tunnel broker site.

In my case I have research interests in IPv6, so it's a testbed, and being able to see all my home network via a/64 is handy. But as breser says, I actually see comparable or better latency via HE as compared to via my own ISP.

I have little sympathy for the ISPs. No devices support IPv6 because there's no evidence that any of the networks for which they are intended has any plan for implementing IPv6 within the lifetime of the products. There are enough Apple routers out there to run a trial. What we need is the ISPs to turn on support, and a couple of intrepid web sites to put up attractive content. (An IPv6-only free porn site would be ideal.) Final debugging is going to occur only with real use, and you can't get real use if t

I basically agree with your sentiment, but you need to test more than just website. It would be good to do things like get IPv6-enabled versions of a some popular games (like the Quake/Doom/Wolfenstein games, CoD, Halo, etc), and IPv6 enabled builds of the game clients also (because, of course, IPv6 Server with no IPv6 client will have no audience). Maybe an IPv6-enabled VOIP/SIP server (let people make free calls in USA, Canada, or Europe, for example).

One was actually tried, but AFAIK it collapsed due to a combination of repeated delays and licencing issues actually getting top-quality free porn legally. There's plenty of free porn on IPv4 already, so you need something people would pay for... and if people would pay for it, the studio isn't going to be too happy about giving it away for free.
If you want to though, go ahead and set it up yourself. Servers arn't that expensive to rent, though you'll have t

Given that router manufacturers shipped buggy products...And given that the solution is a firmware update...And given that the companies best equipped to handle this are ISPs...And given that the products are implicitly warranted for fitness of merchantabilty...

I propose that rather than a product recall or class action lawsuit, the manufacturers jointly agree that they will pay a fee to the ISPs for each firmware upgrade performed by their techs for the residential and home office markets. The techs can si

I've just had a couple of days off work with a nasty virus, and even with my head full of cotton wool I had a play with setting my Netgear DG834 into "Modem only" mode (via the hidden page http://192.168.0.1/mode.htm [192.168.0.1]) and running RP-PPPoE [roaringpenguin.com] on my linux server. I managed to get it up running IPv4 pretty quickly. Now all I need to do is wait for my ISP to start supporting IPv6. Unlike Andrews and Arnold [aaisp.net.uk] who have been running IPv6 for ages, they don't think it will be a concern for some considerable time [zen.co.uk]. Don't

The only hard part about OpenWRT or DD-WRT is the installation. Everything else is on par with other firmwares, save for the fact that you get more functionality and thus more options. If the firmware comes preinstalled they can slap on an interface that hides 3/4 of the options behind an "advanced functions" page and boom, instant super-capable consumer-grade router with no more hassle than every other router on the market.

but not using said alternative firmware. Let's face the upgrade side: we're talking about days when people routinely root their cellphones and have at least one alternative browser they click on without having an ounce of IT blood in their family.

On using the alt firmware... I'm under the impression that the main OSS router firmwares force you to use a CLI before you can 'install' what 99% of the world considers a mandatory port 80 GUI.

If that's still the truth, then it's pretty bad form. The only reason Jo

"On using the alt firmware... I'm under the impression that the main OSS router firmwares force you to use a CLI before you can 'install' what 99% of the world considers a mandatory port 80 GUI."

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but if you're trying to say you need to use a CLI to get port 80 open.. no. If you're saying you need to use the CLI to get access to the router to flash.. no. While some models USE to require JTAG.. they were works in progress at the time. For example the linksys routers

No CLI involved, unless for some reason you really wanted to. Even upgrading between firmwares like factory > DDWRT > OpenWRT is all done via web GUI. The whole network is actually ready to go (without encryption) by just plugging it in.

DD-WRT is a lot more complicated then any proprietary router I have ever used, sure, it also can do a lot more, but even as experienced user I feel kind of lost between the hundreds (or thousands?) of configuration options. It is simply to much stuff at once to be really considered easy to use.

It's no worse than the stock Linksys firmware in terms of how "hard" it is to setup.. and a HELL of a lot easier than any Verizon Westell DSL modem for configuring for a router etc (it doesn't help Verizon's directions suck too)

Heck if I gave an end user a linksys router with DD-WRT on it (just flashed).. they could just plug it in and be online. Sure the wifi name would be DD-WRT and have no WEP/WAP/etc, but it's not much different than any other router you plug in and it just works.

It's no worse than the stock Linksys firmware in terms of how "hard" it is to setup..

The problem isn't how hard it is to setup when you already know what you want to do, but the bazillion of other options floating around in the interface that provide plenty of opportunity to get things wrong. Simply put, options that you don't understand are intimidating and confusing and DD-WRT has no shortage of those. All the other routers I have used, while not being fundamentally different in UI design, simply had substantially less options to play around with and focused more on what the average consu

All the other routers I have used, while not being fundamentally different in UI design, simply had substantially less options to play around with and focused more on what the average consumer actually used.

You've probably never used a Zyxel, then.

Yes, stock consumer router firmware is usually simpler. But you pay for that by simply not being able to do things you might want to do, like multi-NAT. DD-WRT is mostly aimed towards those who want to do more than the stock firmware allows, so it's going to be

Plug in the Ethernet, Goto the web admin page (just like every router out there) click wireless set the password and encryption and OK. The router reboots and you're ready to go nothing more or less than any other router. Of course you can get into the guts if you want to but that's beyond the basics and not needed to get everything up and running.

I'm going to guess that you haven't used DD-WRT, Tomato, or an OpenWRT-based firmware.

OpenWRT itself is more like Debian, the base system to bigger and better things (unless you're a nerd: then it's awesome on its own).

Tell that to the average person. People who aren't technically inclined will generally want to be able to plug in the device and have it perform its magic. Telling them to upgrade their firmware with something non-standard would confirming to them why geeks seem so out of touch. It may not be rocket science to the average/. reader, but to the average person it might well as be.

The bigger issue tends to be the modem. I'm still using the same modem that I got when I switched from horrible Comcrap to terrible Qwest, it seems to have stability issues and yet lacks any sort of hardware watchdog setting and has to be periodically reboot when downloading via torrent.

I know. I can't figure this one out. At this point writing your own router OS for SOHO-level things is like writing your own database -- you could, but it's going to be expensive and in most ways not as good as the pre-fab options.

Just put the top dev from your software team on the DD-WRT project to make sure your device and marketing features are supported, tell the guys that actually work on low-level drivers (if any -- most PHY units are now sold with prefab driver stubs from companies other than the rou

This is exactly what Netgear has done with some of its newer products. The WNDR3700 and family comes with an older version of OpenWRT with the Netgear interface. Buffalo is now rebranding DD-WRT for use in some of its routers.

I doubt websites will require IPv6 for quite some years, as nobody would be stupid enough to just cut of a large percentage of the userbase. Where IP addresses will run out is at the user side, people are already behind dynamic IP addresses for that reason, in the future they might be behind a provider-NAT or transparent proxy and no longer get a public IP at all. That setup would still keep old gear running and allow access to IPv4 webpages and give plenty of time to fix/upgrade old router gear. Lets not f

Current web sites won't require it, but at a certain point new web sites or businesses will only be able to get an IPv6 address or IPv6 subnet. If you want to access their web sites then you will need it. The IPv4 address pool exhaustion is going to hit Asia and Africa first, so you will likely be cut off from new businesses and service in those geographic regions.

Akamai is already doing the work necessary for IPv6 support, but it probably won't be ready until late 2011 or 2012.

It will be able to run for some time by just reselling IPs. You want a range, but none to be had? No problem: Just find a company with more addresses then they need and offer a reasonable sum of money. Eventually organisations will realise that if they deploy more NAT they can free up precious addresses to sell on the open market. It'll all cuminate at the point when everyone who isn't running a server is behind three nester NAT routers and it's impossible for any end user to communicate with another except

I think we're going to see a transition period (which might last a long time - decades, perhaps) where ISPs will offer native IPv6 transport for their customers who are all setup for it, and for those still using older gear (or a mix of new and old gear), they will setup IPv4 to IPv6 translation servers.

Kind of similar in concept to NAT, but instead of translating from public IPv4 to private IPv4 addresses, it will translate back and forth between IPv4 and IPv6. So, your computer will think it's talking to an IPv4 server (but the address of that IPv4 Server will be a 10.* private address allocated on the ISP's network (on a temporary, as-needed basis). That 10.* address will be mapped by the IPv4-to-IPv6 NAT Server to have all it's traffic forwarded to the public IPv6 address of the computer you are trying to contact.

IPv6 computers will not be able to initiate an 'inbound' connection to the IPv4 host (because it is hidden behind the ISP's NAT server), but IPv4-only devices inside the ISP network will be able to talk 'out' to IPv6-only servers.

At least, probably. This is how it *should* work. If you have working IPv6 cable/dsl modem, this could be done by the cable/dsl modem, hypothetically, with the traffic from your modem to the ISP being IPv6-only, so that there's no need to run your traffic through your ISPs NAT device, but I think that, because of the types of equipment problems this article is about, it's likely ISPs will end up offering such a v4-v6 NAT service to customers.

True, but sadly people are happy enough with the current, reachable IPv4 internet that they won't care unless somehow there's youtube and facebook killer that is v6 only out there. But you can't be #1 if you start out in a broken-off shard of the internet --I mean, your site's not even counted in official top-site stats, unless it's ipv4

It actually depends on how well designed the conformance test is. If the conformance test is suitably rigorous and complex in that it tests every feature of the protocols included in the test, then it should give a fairly high level of confidence in the implementation being tested.

Yes, that doesn't guarantee 100% bug-freeness,if you will, but it should verify that it works well enough for use.

I believe their routers run a version of BSD. They've had IPv6 support for years. Apple is an interesting mix of flashy products that tend to be on the expensive side with fairly decent underlying technology. It's a mistake for techies to become fans and enemies of particular vendors. That approach to the world is fine for football fans, but not so useful for people making technology decisions.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with those things. We have three of them at work, while I have a BuffaloTech WZR-300NH at home.

While I'm a fan of installable, offline applications for roughly 98% of circumstances, router configs are def a task best left to a browser. Apple routers require an installable application to be used. I've had issues with the client connecting to a misconfigured router, and the trick of forcing it to connect to an IP is known by half the applecare reps I spoke to (admitted